that's mrs. mediocrity to you

i drove to the mountains once
because i couldn’t leave you from here

i tied asphalt ribbons in my hair
and sang louder than 12-ton thunder

but everywhere i went had already been touched
by the same sky i’d left you holding

in a balloon the color of loneliness
tied to your wrist to mark you

as the strange lost child
i could never reclaim

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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Also linking in over at dVersePoets for Poetics,
with the rhythm of the road.

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there are 51 ways to leave your lover
but only if you’re good at math

a tree learns early on that survival
depends on your ability to bend

the penultimate beat of a dying heart
echoes perpetually through its last

odd numbers belong to odd people
and we’re all stuck at seventeen

being less than whole takes up more space
than the chance of being well rounded

there are zero degrees of separation
between you and your last neighbor

if you look into the eyes of pi
you will meet eternity’s maker

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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beliefs and baubles rain down
from a sky filled with numbers

and i have no cloak to offer

the skin i wear is my reality
broken hands and banged up knees

my gift is the soil scraped from nails

rich with worm and cross-hatched root
held down by your wing driven sky

nothing is wrong in the forest of calm

and i climb into the cave of bear
embrace the bones you’ve buried there

each icon wrapped in fields of feather

loose layers of tender revealed by touch
reflect the season of my eyes

as spring awaits the hunger of your cry

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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you told me once that green was the color of life
and then you left my heart floating in its own red tide

i asked for help and you laughed in ripples of reduction
neon notes of avarice slipping through your yellowed teeth

but you held my hand the day the world turned violet
and didn’t let go until my moss-eyed stare
rose to hold your reflection

i knew right then there was no getting free
of the boundaries we’d blurred between us

you were my cornflower and i was your olive
and everything else was left in the box

two empty spaces perpetually waiting
for someone to turn the lost page

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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my brother taught the old mariner’s warning
to a chubby-cheeked freckled faced girl

i’ve learned since then that storms come in waves
and rose-colored daylight has no way of knowing
how dark the season of night was

fifty years went by before i gave up on midnight
and sat watching the sun creep through the trees
of my creak-boned obvious dreams

but pink isn’t red and the sun never rises
through a crimson ocean of clouds

light and deliverance can always be obscured
by a hand a blanket a curtain
or the cold blue mask of sorrow’s lost moon

the truth of each star is doused only by dawn
and the slow erasure of a secret last dance
from a card filled with yesterday’s dresses

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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i’m not the best singer in the world
(my cats are happy to let me know this)

there are days all i want
is to curl into a ball (feline style)
and wait for tomorrow

or magic or a miracle or even
one tiny moment of escape

but this isn’t fiction
and you aren’t a hero

(things really aren’t that bad and i’m made of iron)

and then i start to wander (wonder)
through characters and words
and parceled-out syllables of time

parsimonious gifts that feed me
for days

(i always have a bruise on my forehead)

my legs keep moving
even in my sleep

i have no destination
and i’ve erased all my maps

(paper disintegrates)

i keep trying to cross the threshold of after

but i’m forced to make do
with this shiny clean
lace-curtained window

(the sky is invisible)

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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Also linking in over at dVersePoets for Meeting the Bar,
with self portraits.

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a tulip
refuses to rage
or go gentle

blown out
blowsed up
blundering on

through
tenacity’s
funeral

no tears
no fear
all clear

silent growth
tender reach
purple hope

eating sunshine
like spun
cotton candy

harnessed
by beauty’s
last song

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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in a garden of barely there
two white flowers stand side by side

heads bent in a soliloquy of prayer

the ground is barren
in all directions

but for these brave soldiers
sent ahead to scout
for possibility

in the rooted dance
of no escape

outstretched arms always almost touching

two white flowers stand side by side
in a garden of barely there

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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you would be my after nest
and every song would contain the name
of forgiveness

the sky would be my blanket
and my window
stars would glitter on my skin
clouds would whisper white lies

hope would never
crack open
sing for supper
fall from grace

and each breeze
would brush my skin
with the promise
of wings

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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as if red would change hue by calling it blue

then lavender and lemons could be interchanged

while joy and melancholy ride the same fence

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roses aren’t always red and blue is a mood

spite is never a flavor but we know how it tastes

the moon never burns and the sun always sleeps

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blood seen through my skin runs aquamarine

the spider only knows the rhyme scheme of hunger

evening always lights the candle of mourning

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each heart is the color of refrain

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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